For the 2 years, mobs from lvls 1-80, have been the kind of what you’d expect to face in Starter Zones.
The engaging combat mechanics in this game are not there, as long as we can go all DPS and just stand and kill everything without doing anything else…
This is not a rant to demand hard mobs into PvE.
Just enough to make us dodge abit more, think about our positioning, keep on moving, use abilities and never make us focus on full DPS, Control or Support builds.
Enough to keep us on our toes in combat.
(Experimented a reasonable Warrior Berserker DPS build with some defensive abilities, while solo, on Mordrem, I did fine, never stopped moving, never wasted a dodge and tried to position myself, even against Husks and Trashers, which eventually died quite fast.)
Not to mention problems of 2/3 of combat mechanics being useless for huge majority of PvE content, due to the design and use of these mechanics.
Ratio of PvE content right now, would be 99% dominated by DPS builds while control and support are useless since they cannot affect the flow of combat, while 1% gives equal chances for DPS, Control and Support builds.
To make use of Support and Control builds in this PvE content right now, players have to take handicaps, which is pretty much same as forcing others to play this and that…
Unfortunately, having DPS build with some Support and Control abilities, is just DPS build with minimal support and control, which do work quite great with current mob designs, but Support or Control build with some DPS abilities, doesn’t fare as well at all.
Problems with DPS builds used in PvE:
- Mobs are designed to have huge amounts of HP, which is not much of a problem for Direct Dmg, not to mention Rank ups boost HP in ridiculous amounts.
- Mobs deal high damage per hit, but attack once every 3-5 seconds, rarely any faster.
- Mobs possess abilities that activate slowly and deal quite minimal damage, which makes them pretty much harmless, even in group content.
- Mobs have pretty much 0 armor, which is only stat that can heavily weaken direct damage effectiviness.
- Mobs rarely utilize boons and conditions, never effectively either, just 1 or 2 mobs in a mob faction.
- Ranks Veteran and Elite means nothing, just more HP and DMG on mob, othervise they’re no different from “Trash mobs”.
- Mobs all die quickly, way too quickly, even before they spawn, activate or deal any damage.
Problems why Control and Support builds are useless for 99%:
- Conditions require time to deal damage.
- Healing is to give longevity if combat draws longer.
- Control just controls and “tanks” mobs, should they be too much for others.
- Boons give advantages, but some boons give over time advantages, like endurance regen or health regen.
- Boon/Condition Manipulation is to change advantages to disadvantages and vice versa, but require that there are Boons and Conditions in use, should combat draw longer than expected.
But as 1% is where all builds have equal chances, it’s same as “limited targets” or “useless abilities”, unless one plays PvP exclusively.
Solutions? Not sure, but I can think of few, but then again they are not always good either, since I’m just 1 person observing and thinking solutions…
- Better mob AI, so that mobs would actually use some abilities more effectively, even dodge. (Suggested by many)
- Perhaps mob types, part of better AI, Example: Fast mobs that dodge quite accurately, attack fast and try to position themselves.
- Variety on mob stats, even for Trash mobs, since “High HP-High Dmg-Slow Attack-0 Armor” has been so great so far, for only about 1/3 of builds.
- Better use of Ranks, Example: NoRanks are Trash mobs, Veteran and Elites could be advanced mobs with toned down boss abilities and/or more significant lesser abilities, Champions are minibosses, Higher ranks are big bosses, etc. (This will also solve the “Limited targets” issue)
- Better ratios of mobs, not too much trash mobs and not too many Unshakable mobs to limit targets for players and builds.
I do know that update all mobs into better ones will be huge task and never happen quickly. But as more content is added with current mob design in mind, the harder and bigger the job will be…
This is speculations:
Rank ups, I think that rank ups use multipliers, which doesn’t boost extremely low values much, like with “High HP-High DMG-Slow Attack-0 Armor”…
Speculative mathematics with no actual ingame values, if it’s multipliers:
15,000 HP – 5000 DMGvsLight – 1 Armor – NoRank
Rank up to Veteran (x2)
= 15,000×2 HP – 5000×2 DMGvsLight – 1×2 Armor – NoRank -> Veteran
= 30,000 HP – 10000 DMGvsLight – 2 Armor – Veteran
Hopefully this speculation is true, or the new mobs are gonna be quite effed up anyway, if rank ups just boost HP and DMG with huge amounts….
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.